Xbox 360 controller creators now work for Oculus VR

25 June 2014

By Miklós Szecsei

Oculus VR has agreed to acquire the Carbon Design group – the team that designed the Xbox 360 controller among other consumer products like the original Kinect and Microsoft’s Arc Touch Mouse. Over the course of the last 20 years, the industrial design team has netted itself more than 50 design awards. I’m pretty sure many will agree that the Xbox 360 controller is arguably one of the most comfortable controllers available. You can thank Carbon Design for that.

According to an official statement from Oculus VR, the makers of the Rift have been working with Carbon for almost a year “on multiple unannounced projects”. Speculation is rife as to what it is Carbon will bring to the table in terms of a consumer product for Oculus VR. It’s likely that the team is aiding in the final design of the consumer version of the Rift. It has also been suggested that Carbon might be designing an input device for use with the Rift.

“This is an entirely open product category,” Carbon Design’s creative director Peter Bristol said in a statement. “With consumer VR at its inception, the physical architectures are still unknown — We’re on the cutting edge of defining how virtual reality looks, feels, and functions. We’re incredibly excited to be part of the team and we’re looking forward to helping design the future.”

Carbon Design will continue to work out of their offices in Seattle but will be an official part of the Oculus VR Research and Development Team. That R&D team remains in Redmond.

You can take a look at the rest of Carbon Design’s projects over here. They sure have a knack for making technology look super-sleek.